Or You'll Never Have the Chance
by Altra Palantir
Summary: Sometimes you have to change the past to bear the future. One Chapter ficlet. I hope you enjoy it.


Author's Note: This is a HP fic, but the first seeds for this were placed in my brain while I was on startrek.com. Apparently, at a convention, someone asked Gates McFadden (Beverly Crusher) what one thing she thought her character should say if she could go back in time 14 years to talk to Season 1 Beverly Crusher. I decided to write a fic about it, but somewhere in the process, it became about Minerva McGonagall instead. I think it's better this way. Please review and tell me what you think.  
  
Disclaimer: No Harry Potterness belongs to me. I am borrowing Minerva so she doesn't get bored while J.K. Rowling isn't using her. I promise I'll give her back for book six.  
  
Or You'll Never Have the Chance  
  
The old woman snatched the time-turner from the desk. What she was about to do was Illegal, dangerous, and against her own morals, but it didn't bother her anymore. She was too old to care. Nothing mattered anymore. She didn't have time. There were too many things she hadn't ever had time to do. This had to work. she couldn't let this happen. There had never been anything to get her out of those dark days. Why should there be? The light was gone.   
  
She began to turn the key faster and faster. It dawned upon her that she would never know whether or not this worked. she stopped turning and let it pull her back through time.  
  
Minerva McGonagall sat in front of her mirror, brushing out her long black hair. She was daydreaming, paying no attention to her reflection. She was quite accustomed to the fact that it didn't quite please her, but she was well aware that she could look worse. Suddenly, over her shoulder appeared an old face. Very old and wrinkled, but it was hauntingly familiar all the same.  
  
  
  
"Minerva McGonagall," the crone said, "The stubbornest, most foolish bitch in the wizarding world."  
  
  
  
"Who are you? What do you want and how did you get here?" Minerva exclaimed, sputtering over more questions than she could enunciate at once.  
  
"I am you and I wish to tell you something very important," the crone replied coolly.  
  
"I don't believe you," Minerva shot back.  
  
"I sit at that mirror every night and brush my hair out, while I'm in my rooms, my wand is on the little table by my bed, just behind where I'll put my glasses as I'm climbing into bed." Only then did Minvera see the time-turner arond the woman's neck.   
  
"Why the hell are you here? If you are who you say you are, you know I would never..."   
  
  
  
"Spare me," she was interrupted. The older woman gave her a very familiar look. "I know all of what you were about to say. I once would have said it too. I don't have time to argue my own morals with myself. As soon as you even make a decision differently, based on what I have to say, I will cease to exist. Just let me say this one thing." She paused. "Sleep with him now, or you'll never have the chance."  
  
"What?" Minerva exclaimed. "Who, and..." she sputtered, indignantly.  
  
"Oh, we both know _exactly_ who I'm talking about, my dear otherself."  
  
  
  
"But I... tell me why... what happens..."  
  
  
  
"It's too late, you've decided something, or rather, you will sometime before I make this trip back in time. I no longer exist."  
  
  
  
"How do I know what I'm supposed..." It was too late. The other woman had disappeared, "to do."  
  
"How could you do this to me?" she ranted. "I know what I'm doing, or I did until you came." To be honest, she wasn't quite sure why this was such a big deal. Why hadn't she just shrugged off the old woman as a dream? Did she really believe that it had been her future self? But why would she ever want to create such a paradox? "Why would I do this to myself?" she asked nothing.  
  
Minerva McGonagall wasn't in the habit of lying to herself. She knew what she _wanted_ to do, and her future self wasn't far off the mark. Maybe... But no. She couldn't, could she? If only she had bothered to explain herself better. _Sleep with him now, or you'll never have the chance_. What did that mean? Something was going to happen, Minerva suddenly knew. Something horrible that she was going to regret for the rest of her life. Something that would make her compromise everything to save herself from it. And Minerva knew she would act. Somehow.  
  
This was completely unfamiliar territory. There were first years who knew more about this sort of thing, not that she'd ever ask. She climbed into bed, placing her glasses just in front of her wand and muttered the spell to turn out the light.  
  
A quiet man mused over a grave. The husband's magic had been much more powerful than his wife's, or anyone else's for that matter. It had extended his life for a good eighty years longer than hers. It was perfect timing, as things go, because they died within hours of each other, peacefully and in their sleep. They had been happy. He smiled sadly and dropped the rose from his left hand. He reached up to push a messy lock of grey-streaked hair out of his eyes. His fingertips touched the lightning bolt scar as they crossed his forehead. He would miss them. They all would. But they would never miss each other. 


End file.
